Europe & Central Asia

2014

New York, October 30, 2014--A court in Azerbaijan today sentenced Khalid Garayev, a reporter for the embattled opposition newspaper Azadliq and the technical director of "Azerbaijani Hour," Azadliq's online TV program, to almost a month in prison on charges of hooliganism and disobeying the police, according to news reports.

On the Buda side of the River Danube stands the glass and steel headquarters of the thriving German-owned entertainment channel RTL. On the Pest side of the Hungarian capital, tucked in a corner of a converted department store, lies the cramped office of struggling online news outlet Atlatszo.

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New York, October 24, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today's conviction and sentencing to prison of French documentary filmmakers Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat on charges of breaking immigration laws in Indonesia. The two were sentenced to two months and 15 days in prison and are expected to be released next week because of time served, according to news reports citing their lawyer.

A coalition of international press freedom groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, today called on Azerbaijani authorities to lift the travel ban and end the politicized prosecution of Khadija Ismayilova, an award-winning investigative reporter. In the past week authorities in Baku detained Ismayilova upon her arrival from Strasbourg where she had traveled to brief European politicians on Azerbaijan's human rights record; put her on trial over accusations of libel against a resident; and barred her from attending a pro-democracy forum in the Czech Republic, alleging that she was a witness in an unspecified criminal inquiry.

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New York, October 10, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the criminal libel charges filed against Khadija Ismayilova, an award-winning investigative journalist in Azerbaijan, and calls on authorities to drop the charges immediately.

"They raided our offices as if we were mobsters. The irony of the situation is that the Hungarian police rarely raid mobsters with such force," said an employee at one of two NGOs whose Budapest offices were stormed by about 20 officers of the Central Investigations Office--Hungary's version of the FBI--on September 8.

"The European Commission expressed serious concern about developments in the area of rule of law and fundamental rights (in Turkey)." It is progress report season in Brussels. As every year in early October, the commissioner in charge of enlargement unveils documents that judge the progress of all candidate countries in adopting European Union (EU) laws and standards, and Turkey is at the forefront.

Reuters editor-at-large Harry Evans had a question for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Would he be willing to meet with a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Press Institute (IPI) when it visited Turkey?

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New York, September 24, 2014--Kremlin-controlled authorities in Crimea should stop harassing the independent regional broadcaster ATR and allow the outlet to cover the news free from reprisal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. ATR is the only regional broadcaster of the ethnic Crimean Tatar minority.